Trump Jr. Offered A Dense Legal Analysis of the Supreme Court Cake Ruling - And Was Immediately Schooled
In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 7-2 ruling in favor of a baker who claimed the religious freedom to deny making a same-sex couple their wedding cake, Donald Trump Jr.—like many on Twitter—jumped to offer his own well-informed take on the historic ruling.
Commenting on an Associated Press article announcing the Court’s “narrow” decision, Trump Jr. chimed in, “I am reading about a 7 - 2 vote. Pretty sure that's not narrowly... At least 2 dem leaning justices must have agreed.”
Unfortunately for Trump Jr., in this context “narrow” has nothing to do with the number of Supreme Court Justices who sided with whom in a particular case or whether those Justices deviated from their perceived ideological leanings.
Instead, “narrow” means the ruling pertains to the case at hand. As Axios’ Sam Baker explains, “SCOTUS says *this* baker wins *this* case, in part because Colorado officials seemed hostile to his beliefs, but explicitly holds open the possibility that future bakers could lose.”
The Internet on Monday piled on Trump Jr.’s dense judicial analysis:
@LSchitz @DonaldJTrumpJr @JackPosobiec Not exactly... it means the ruling itself was narrow. Read the concurrence, not much is set.— Kyle Kashuv (@Kyle Kashuv) 1528123442
I have read the decision that the Supreme Court issued and which you have misinterpreted like the tweet itself Fo… https://t.co/egzu7S1NFX— Matt Fuller (@Matt Fuller) 1528123615
@DonaldJTrumpJr How many times were you dropped on your head as a baby? And as an adult, for that matter?— Scott Tobias (@Scott Tobias) 1528123698
Trump Jr, surprisingly, is not an expert in appellate law or how people talk about Supreme Court decisions https://t.co/8w5RUQbas9— Judd Legum (@Judd Legum) 1528123458
This is not helpful. Narrow has nothing to do with the number of justices. A unanimous decision can also be a narro… https://t.co/FtDNZESzqP— Meg Kinnard (@Meg Kinnard) 1528123146
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To be fair, Trump Jr. wasn’t the only MAGA-head whose grasp of the law (and Google) is “narrow”:

7-2 hockey score = blow out 7-2 baseball score = not even close 7-2 #Scotus ruling = narrow? When progressive judg… https://t.co/tARLLjqPFG— Tim Young (@Tim Young) 1528123845
And NOOOOO. It wasn’t a “narrow” ruling. https://t.co/0AsINhYELw— Chicks On The Right (@Chicks On The Right) 1528124367
